Maggie Nelson

Documents how the murder case of the author's aunt was reopened more than three decades later upon the discovery of new DNA findings, describing how the subsequent investigation and trial reopened long-standing wounds for the author and her family. By the author of Jane: A Murder. 40,000 first printing.

A Memoir

The Red Parts

Selected as a Book of the Year 2017 in the Guardian 'Maggie Nelson’s short, singular books feel pretty light in the hand... But in the head and the heart, they seem unfathomably vast, their cleverness and odd beauty lingering on' Observer In 1969, Jane Mixer, a first-year law student at the University of Michigan, posted a note on a student noticeboard to share a lift back to her hometown of Muskegon for spring break. She never made it: she was brutally murdered, her body found a few miles from campus the following day. The Red Parts is Maggie Nelson’s singular account of her aunt Jane’s death, and the trial that took place some 35 years afterward. Officially unsolved for decades, the case was reopened in 2004 after a DNA match identified a new suspect, who would soon be arrested and tried. In 2005, Nelson found herself attending the trial, and reflecting with fresh urgency on our relentless obsession with violence, particularly against women. Resurrecting her interior world during the trial – in all its horror, grief, obsession, recklessness, scepticism and downright confusion – Maggie Nelson has produced a work of profound integrity and, in its subtle indeterminacy, deadly moral precision.

Autobiography of a Trial

My brother watches a lot of true crime and is fascinated with the killers. Me too sometimes, if it's well done. I wonder if we come to it from the same place because we usually don't come to things from the same places. It scares me, the potential for violence we store in our gums.

Dora Tominic

Disclaimer: this is not a review.

My brother watches a lot of true crime and is fascinated with the killers. Me too sometimes, if it's well done. I wonder if we come to it from the same place because we usually don't come to things from the same places. It scares me, the potential for violence we store in our gums.

Selected as a Book of the Year 2017 in the Guardian'Maggie Nelson's short, singular books feel pretty light in the hand... But in the head and the heart, they seem unfathomably vast, their cleverness and odd beauty lingering on' ObserverIn 1969, Jane Mixer, a first-year law student at the University of Michigan, posted a note on a student noticeboard to share a lift back to her hometown of Muskegon for spring break. She never made it- she was brutally murdered, her body found a few miles from campus the following day.The Red Partsis Maggie Nelson's singular account of her aunt Jane's death, and the trial that took place some 35 years afterward. Officially unsolved for decades, the case was reopened in 2004 after a DNA match identified a new suspect, who would soon be arrested and tried. In 2005, Nelson found herself attending the trial, and reflecting with fresh urgency on our relentless obsession with violence, particularly against women. Resurrecting her interior world during the trial - in all its horror, grief, obsession, recklessness, scepticism and downright confusion - Maggie Nelson has produced a work of profound integrity and, in its subtle indeterminacy, deadly moral precision.

Reading, or watching, anything related to real crimes always feels voyeuristic to me. While it is about a murder and subsequent trial, this book is more about the author whose writing is raw and honest, sometimes brutally so.

Emma Cragg

Jacqueline Englund

I have read several true crime books and this one was definitely among one of the best. A very personal look into the lives of a victims family and the impact tragedy has on them.

Late in 2004, Maggie Nelson was looking forward to the publication of her book Jane: A Murder, a narrative in verse about the life and death of her aunt, who had been murdered thirty-five years before. The case remained unsolved, but Jane was assumed to have been the victim of an infamous serial killer in Michigan in 1969. Then, one November afternoon, Nelson received a call from her mother, who announced that the case had been reopened; a new suspect would be arrested and tried on the basis of a DNA match. Over the months that followed, Nelson found herself attending the trial with her mother and reflecting anew on the aura of dread and fear that hung over her family and childhood--an aura that derived not only from the terrible facts of her aunt's murder but also from her own complicated journey through sisterhood, daughterhood, and girlhood. The Red Parts is a memoir, an account of a trial, and a provocative essay that interrogates the American obsession with violence and missing white women, and that scrupulously explores the nature of grief, justice, and empathy.

Rachel Kwon

"For as long as I can remember, this has been one of my favorite feelings. To be alone in public, wandering at night, or or lying close to the earth, anonymous, invisible, floating... It's a sensation that people have tried, in various times and places, to keep women from feeling. Many still try. You've been told a million times to be alone and female and in public late at night is to court disaster, so it's impossible to know if you're being bold and free or stupid and self-destructive."

The Red Parts A Memoir

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